Finland’s two biggest retail chains, the S and K stores, are raising the price of plastic bags to 50 cents this month. The aim of the price increase is to reduce the use of plastic bags.
Previously, a plastic bag cost 35 euros at a K-Citymarket, for example.
Both grocery chains say that people bought fewer plastic bags last year. Now only about 20 percent of shoppers buy a plastic bag on a typical visit.
Both major retailers raised the price of plastic bags last spring, after which their sales clearly decreased. The use of plastic bags decreased by almost 10 percent last year, the S group says.
Correspondingly, demand for paper bags has grown strongly.
Since the price of plastic bags rose in the spring, sales of paper at S and K stores rose by almost 50 percent from a year earlier.
Risk of microplastics
The EU's target is that each consumer should buy no more than 40 plastic bags per year. There is still some way to go to achieve that goal in Finland, where the average resident still buys around 60 plastic bags annually.
According to the EU, lightweight plastic carrier bags with a thickness of less than 50 microns are among the top 10 littered items in Europe.
It points out that while they are often only used once, they take centuries to fully degrade in the natural environment. Before that, they are frequently ingested by animals or break up into microplastics. Either way, they end up in the human and animal food chain.
According to a recent study by the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), re-using ordinary plastic bags may be a better alternative than using so-called biodegradable plastic ones.
